1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to particle beams, and to a nozzle for directing a radio frequency (RF) atmospheric electron particle beam (AEPB) atmospheric electron charged cloud. The present disclosure relates also to methods of heating targets, such as boilers, with such beams without generating undesirable products of combustion, and without unwanted RF emissions. The AEPB of the present disclosure comprises electrons. The AEPB, due to its high energy output, has characteristics and applications unavailable to the background art.
2. Description of the Related Art
Boilers typically rely on combustion of a fuel as a source of heat for generating steam. Such combustion liberates pollutants and greenhouse gases, such as oxides of sulfur, oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, soot, smoke, ozone, fly ash, heavy metals, and the like. Environmental concerns make the liberation of these pollutants undesirable and for this reason combustion-dependent boilers of the background art must be fitted with expensive and complex means for remediating the pollutants.
The present disclosure overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art, and makes it possible to operate a boiler with a reduction or elimination of environmentally-undesirable combustion products typically associated with combustion of fuels. According to the present disclosure, this is achieved by heating the boiler using an atmospheric electron particle beam that is not dependent upon combustion. Rather, according to the present disclosure, fuels are dissociated non-combustively in an electron charged fluid sheath, thereby liberating energy from the fuels while substantially avoiding problematic emissions. There is, for example, no smoke or pollutant gas produced from such dissociation. The absence of combustion means also that a boiler driven by an atmospheric electron particle beam need not be supplied with oxygen.